DAVID NAKAGAMI
Assistant Sports Editor
Along with a firefighter, policeman and astronaut, an athletic trainer for a professional sports team is among the top choices for a young boy’s dream job. For Michael Feltner, chair of Pepperdine’s Natural Science Division, his childhood dream was no different.
As a child born and raised in Ohio, Feltner grew up idolizing the Cincinnati Reds baseball team. He was raised on the heyday of the Big Red Machine, with Hall of Fame cogs like catcher Johnny Bench and second baseman Joe Morgan, as well as outfielder Pete Rose. Throughout his childhood, he competed in athletics. However, his growth into adolescence resulted in a change of his role in sports.
“The problem was that everyone else grew, and I didn’t,” Feltner said. “So in order to stay associated with athletics and stay around athletics, it was evident to me that probably using my brain instead of my body was a better way to do that.”
“Using his brain” entailed athletic training. Feltner began athletic training for teams in high school, and continued as an undergrad at Miami University in Ohio. Through his connections at Miami, Feltner was able to get an interview with the Cincinnati Reds. In a real-life case of being in the right place at the right time, the head trainer at Miami, for whom Feltner worked, and the head trainer of the Reds were fellow undergraduate students.
“The trainer for the Reds needed to fill two training positions, so he called and asked if he (the head trainer at Miami) had people, so they came up and interviewed us,” Feltner said. “When I interviewed with them, I was hoping to get a job to go to do like rookie league baseball in Billings, Montana and I ended up getting the assistant’s job.”
In the spring of 1980, as a 20 year-old college student finishing his junior year at Miami, Feltner began his dream job as an assistant athletic trainer for his hometown Cincinnati Reds. As a member of the athletic training staff, he performed several basic tasks.
“I did everything from assisting with development and implementation of conditioning programs to primary care of injuries to treatment of injuries to rehabilitation following injuries,” Feltner said.
For night games, he came in at least six hours before the first pitch, making sure all of the supplies were replenished and organized. Injured and bench players filtered in soon after, each requiring different treatments and conditioning drills. As game time approached, the regulars entered, and Feltner prepped them for batting practice and warm-ups. Also, flexibility was a vital part of the Reds’ conditioning program at the time.
“I probably spent about an hour a day stretching people,” Feltner said. “I stretched more pitchers than I ever care to stretch people again.”
These preparations ran until the start of the game, when Feltner and the rest of the training staff found themselves running through the tunnel to the dugout as the first pitch was thrown. To him, the game was “fun time.”
Watching the game from the bench gave Feltner a new angle on America’s national pastime. Being so close to the field, he overheard interactions between players, coaches and umpires. Arguments over called third strikes, and bench-clearing brawls took on a new life. Aside from the chatter, Feltner was called upon to work from time to time. Fortunately (or unfortunately), his job sometimes involved the stars of the team.
“Johnny Bench broke his leg once and the head trainer was doing something, so I was the person on the field for all that,” Feltner said. “Because it was Johnny Bench and I was out there taking care of him, it was a big media thing. The pictures were all over the papers and stuff. My parents got a big kick out of all that. I’m sure my mom still has the paper somewhere.”
After games, the athletic trainers wrapped the pitchers with ice, and 45 minutes after the last out was recorded, the locker room was quiet. There was one more post-game task the training staff took care of.
“We’d sit down and do an injury update,” Feltner said of the team’s athletic training staff. “The trainer had to turn in a report to the general manager after every game of injury status on anyone. At that point they were big on weigh-ins. They wanted to make sure guys were staying fit, and the way they measured that was by how much they weighed. So I would have to do weigh-ins twice a week.”
The clubhouse was not only a place of work for the trainers, but a safe haven where players were able to be themselves and let loose.
“After the game, the players would all let their kids come in the locker room and run around and they would try and get treatment,” Feltner said. “Two of the kids that were always in the locker room running around were the Griffey sons (Ken Jr. and Craig). Ken Griffey Jr. grew up to be a superstar and I remember thinking of him when he was 6 years old climbing all over everything. But it was amazing. He was very polite and very well-behaved then, and his dad was an exceptional person.”
Another time he spent rubbing elbows with greatness sticks in his mind prominently. One day, while he was working with Hall of Fame pitcher Tom Seaver, the righty asked Feltner to call his wife. Apparently, Seaver had forgot to put out the trash cans before leaving the house, and wanted Feltner to remind his wife to do so. The fact that a public figure like Seaver had to do chores like everyone else showed Feltner a humanizing side to elite athletes.
For three years, Feltner served as the Reds’ assistant athletic trainer. Following the 1982 baseball season, he decided not to return as a Cincinnati Reds employee. For Feltner, it was a tough decision, despite his reasons for leaving his dream job.
“It didn’t give me the sense I was fulfilling a purpose,” Feltner said. “It didn’t give me a sense that I was intellectually stimulated and challenged on a day-to-day basis.”
The repetitive nature of the job played a large role in his choice. Also, as a graduate student at Indiana University, finances were a strong influence.
“It wasn’t a full-time job,” Feltner said. “I wasn’t making enough money at it to even support myself and live independently. So that went a long way. If I was going to be poor, I would rather have been poor in school than I would have been poor working.”
Although Feltner left the sports arena, many of the lessons he learned with the Reds helped him succeed in the intellectual world. In fact, he goes as far as to say that without this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, he would not be where he is today.
“Having those experiences and the confidence you develop from them gave me the chance to figure out that it was OK to try something different,” Feltner said. “It was my fascination with sports and this wanting to better understand the role between movement and injury that led me to biomechanics. So I don’t think I would’ve ended up in biomechanics without that experience.”
In addition to his field of study, his service to the Reds opened his eyes to the doors of opportunity around him.
“It gave me a sense of scale in that what opportunities existed for you if you wanted to take advantage of them,” Feltner said. “The one thing that I really got from it is this idea that there weren’t limitations on what you can do. If I’m willing to work and I’m willing to do this, I can do this, I can do that.”
As the chair of the Natural Science Division and professor of the Biomechanics of Movement course this semester at Pepperdine, Feltner has traveled a long and circuitous route since his days with the Reds.
“When I was 20, I could’ve never envisioned being here doing this,” he said. “If you told me at 20 that in 25 years you’ll be chairing the Natural Science Division at Pepperdine University … I’d never been to California at that point in my life.”
As a leader in the field of biomechanics and a professor to a group of upperclassmen, Feltner still feels a connection to his “glory days.”
“I think there’s kind of a care and a compassion for people that obviously carries over to how you interact with students,” he said.
Reflecting on his life, Feltner certainly appreciates how the choices he has made have fallen into place.
“I don’t think anyone at 20 knows what their ultimate life goals and ambitions are,” Feltner confessed. “Certainly, when I got the job, I thought I had pretty much died and gone to heaven at that point. I thought that was pretty cool.
“I think there’s lots of things that happen in life that you look back and say that is guidance. Having that [job with the Reds] led me to have this interest in biomechanics, which led me to graduate school, which got me here. Then this plays out, and then I’m here doing something that I love at a place that I love.”
Currently, Feltner shares the joys of his life with his wife Michele of 11 years and two young children, Madeline and Max. He still stays connected to sports as a spectator and fan of NASCAR, Indiana Hoosiers basketball and hockey. It’s true to say that Feltner has lived one dream and continues to live another.
02-21-2008
